A former senior U.S. intelligence official who is an informal advisor to the Trump administration on Middle East policy told Drop Site that, based on his discussions with current officials, he assesses an 80-90% likelihood of U.S. strikes within weeks.

The extraordinary and expensive U.S. military buildup would be sufficient for a large-scale campaign against Tehran that goes far beyond the limited strikes that have taken place in the past. “It harkens back to what I saw ahead of the 2003 Iraq war,” said retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, in an interview with Drop Site News. “You don’t assemble this kind of power to send a message. In my view, this is what you do when you’re preparing to use it. What I see on the diplomatic front is just to try to keep things rolling until it’s time to actually launch the military operation. I think that everybody on both sides knows where this is heading.”

The former senior U.S. intelligence official told Drop Site that Trump was intent on striking Iran in January, but was not satisfied with the options presented by the military based on the existing assets in the region.

“Everything was set up” to strike in January, Davis said, “And then all of a sudden it didn’t happen.” Netanyahu was concerned that more defensive capabilities were needed to respond to Iranian retaliation, he said, and these concerns were echoed by Pentagon war planners. “And I think that that delayed it,” Davis added. “And then of course, right after that, you saw this big surge of air defense missiles going in all over the place.”

Archive link

On February 10, as sirens warned of Russian strikes against Odesa, staff at the main railway depot in this southern Ukrainian region calmly made their way to one of the nearby fortified underground shelters. Aside from energy infrastructure, this vast site has become a top target for Moscow's missiles and drones.

Inside the converted bunker, mechanics, laundry workers – responsible for the sheets used on overnight trains – and company managers, including the depot director Leonid Loboïko, gathered. "Since autumn 2025, every night here has been a nightmare," he said. "The Russians target our repair workshops, trains, tracks, and electric facilities. If they manage to halt rail traffic, Ukraine will become one large cemetery."

There was no panic in the shelter, which also welcomed local residents. The voices were drowned out by the depot chief, a 75-year-old man who looks a decade younger, with an open and cheerful demeanor, leading a team of 1,300 people. "In January, the city's military administration asked us to coordinate with the police to raise our security level," he confided. "I also put in place new internal procedures, for work and discipline, to reduce risks. We've become a frontline, and sometimes I feel like a railway general."

Archive link

The publication of 3.5 million documents linked to the sprawling case involving sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has confronted the French justice system with an unprecedented situation and a Herculean task. How can it process the mountain of freely accessible data now before it, which could potentially contain a multitude of offenses, whether sexual or financial, committed on French soil?

On Wednesday, February 18, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced the opening of two investigations entrusted to five magistrates. One will focus on "human trafficking," covering what is commonly called solicitation or recruitment, and the other on "financial offenses of money laundering, breaches of probity, or tax fraud." The investigations will be conducted in collaboration with the National Directorate of the Judicial Police, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office and several national offices.

The head of the Paris prosecutor's office pledged to make use of "the full body of data" that makes up the Epstein files, taking into account reports received in the form of complaints from victims or advocacy groups, information published by the media, or material already handled by the judiciary in the past. "These framework investigations will allow us to centralize the data so that we can analyze each piece in light of the others," said Beccuau, describing it as a "titanic task of analysis."

Basically looking for an all in one program similar to the Arr stack that's easy to use. If it needs to / can be set up with an NBZ or Debrid service beforehand it's fine, it's mostly on the daily usage part that it should have a somewhat friendly GUI. Also helps if it has or can be paired with an app for remote streaming what's on the server.

Ideally works on Cosmos, but if it can't for any reason, then CasaOS or Yunohost might be fine too.

I'm trying to set up something rather easy to use for my two partners, who are not the most tech savvy, and one of which who really dislikes clunky menus.

Hi there,

I'm hosting matrix for family use on a server at my place. The issue is my home is affected by internet and electricity outages - which we're trying to fix. This means that there are frequent downtimes on the chat. I have a UPS but usually is not enough to power everything - router and server - for longer periods of time.

The internet downtime is easy to fix as my router supports fallback connection which I point to a mobile internet solution.

I've thought about moving everything to a VPS but then I'm a bit wary of privacy regarding the data there. There's also the option of moving the server to a family member's house but I want this this be last resort because that makes maintenance harder.

Anyone dealt with this issues and found a solution? Perhaps a fallback mechanism that temporarily hosts the sever on a VPS? :D

Froma prince to a prisoner. How the mighty have fallen.

Summary
Police say King Charles's brother is in custody and officers are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk - read the police statement in full

A widespread concern is what would happen to Dutch weapon systems if the Americans were to withdraw completely as an ally. For example, Dutch F-35 aircraft are dependent on American software updates. Yet, Tuinman isn't particularly worried about this.

"The F-35 is truly a shared product. The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too." And even if this mutual dependency doesn't result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters.

If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I'm going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone. (Crack it with your own software, ed.)

Hi, since there is no community dedicated for investing from EU out there I will ask here!

How do you approach investing for retirement?

All the US-boycotting movements suggests avoiding ETFs with US exposure but it also limits opportunities. From other hand we don’t like major corporations here on fediverse so I shouldn’t hope and profit from their growth. I guess euro stocks are more aligned with buy from EU movement and small cap stocks ETF may be more ethical choice. But I’m still not ready to do that move, as I have most of my savings in EUNL (Core MSCI World). I also have some exposure to gold and Apple specifically.

Or do you simply not pay attention to investing in stocks and more to investing in community/friends/skills?

I would love to read some your takes 😊

A South Korean court on Thursday sentenced the former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment with labour over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, finding him guilty of leading an insurrection and making him the first elected head of state in the country’s democratic era to receive the maximum custodial sentence.

Under South Korean law, the charge of leading an insurrection carries three possible sentences: death, life imprisonment with labour, or life imprisonment without labour.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, arguing that Yoon committed “a grave destruction of constitutional order” by mobilising troops to surround parliament and attempting to arrest political opponents during the six-hour crisis.

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/59382082

A quarter of those it surveyed in Australia said the "mateship" they feel with other Australians, as well as how they "lend a hand" in times of need, such as natural disasters, were a source of pride.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/47682130

Restaurants and cafes are closing down in Russia at the fastest pace since the start of the war in Ukraine four years ago as consumption stalls even in affluent Moscow.

The closures, visible on streets from the capital to Vladivostok 6,500 km (4,000 miles) east on the Pacific Ocean, point to a significant slowdown in Russia's $2.8 trillion economy, which has so far proved surprisingly resilient in the face of stringent Western sanctions.

...

High interest rates, higher taxes, rising prices and a $20-per-barrel discount for Russian oil are taking their toll - even in Moscow, a vast urban area of 22 million people that has been largely insulated from the worst impact of Europe's deadliest war since World War Two.

"To let" signs are prominent in retail spaces across the capital. Sales of new light commercial vehicles and trucks, a good indicator for the health of the retail and construction industry, fell by 38% to 147,000 units in 2025 and have continued to fall in the first weeks of 2026, Autostat said.

Data from Sberbank, which as Russia's biggest bank sees the ripples of expenditure across the economy, showed that the fall in the number of catering outlets in January was the biggest since 2021 and that restaurant spending hit the lowest in three years in November-early December 2025. The change is especially striking as major Russian cities saw a restaurant boom before the pandemic, and some politicians bridled at what they saw as Moscow's "decadent frivolity" while soldiers were being killed or injured at the front.

Overall, real consumer spending growth fell to zero in February for the first time in two years, Sberbank data showed. Russia forecasts economic growth of 1.3% this year after 1% in 2025, 4.9% in 2024 and 4.1% in 2023. The International Monetary Fund forecasts 0.8% growth for 2026.

...

Russian sources say that while there are certainly problems in the economy, it is still performing remarkably well and they dismiss suggestions of its demise as premature. Besides, Putin is unlikely to change course on Ukraine due to restaurants shutting their doors, they said.

Nevertheless, Putin earlier this month told top economic officials to restore the growth rate and urged them not to simply monitor prices. Just 10 days later, the central bank cut rates by 50 basis points to 15.5%.

...

Borrowing costs - advertised by major banks at about 18-19% for unsecured loans to business - have hit small businesses and consumers hard, especially after some lenders imposed stricter limits on consumer credit.

...

Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wearing Nazi uniforms, and are investigating whether new federal hate symbol laws were broken.

David Howe, the owner of Dissent Cafe and Bar in Canberra’s CBD, said his venue was shut down for about two hours on Wednesday night as police investigated a complaint about hate imagery relating to five posters in the window.

“I think it’s ludicrous to be perfectly honest,” he told Guardian Australia, describing the works as an “anti-fascist statement” and noting the shut down had caused the cancellation of an interstate band’s performance.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/47681631

A relative of Vladimir Putin owns a stake in the Russian tech giant VK, which in turn owns the new state-backed “everything app” MAX, independent investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov claimed on Wednesday.

Zakharov said that although VK had a complex ownership structure, its accounts for the first half of 2025 showed that its shareholders included the insurance company Sogaz. Prior to the war in Ukraine, Mikhail Shelomov, the son of one of Putin’s first cousins, was known to own a 12.47% stake in Sogaz through a St. Petersburg-based insurance company called Accept.

Although Sogaz made its list of shareholders private after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zakharov was able to access Accept’s accounts and learnt that Shelomov has retained his stake in the company, with its 2024 accounts showing that his shares were worth approximately the same then as they did in 2019.

Zakharov thus concluded that Shelomov still owned a stake in VK, and therefore in MAX. When Zakharov managed to reach Shelomov by phone to ask him what his connection to the messenger was, Shelomov reportedly said “none” before hanging up.

...

In addition to his stake in Sogaz, Shelomov also owns shares in Rossiya Bank, a controlling stake in which belongs to Putin’s friend Yury Kovalchuk, who also part owns VK.

...

As investigative outlet Proekt revealed in 2019, Shelomov became a dollar billionaire in the late 2010s, but continued to spend his weekends at his dacha with an outdoor toilet, suggesting that he was simply a proxy holder of Putin’s wealth.

...

Web archive link